It’s much worse for Gwent players who don’t want to play Thronebreaker. The tutorial in standalone Gwent is pathetic; if you are a new player you would be lost without the excellent tutorial in Thronebreaker (not to mention the rewards you get for buying Thronebreaker).

Both versions are great on their own, if you ask me. If you don’t want gold chests in Thronebreaker, you can skip them. I think it’s a cool game with or without the chests. Personally, I enjoy getting the fancy cards even though I’m not sure I’m going to play much Gwent. (I love the card game, but I do stress out over multiplayer.) I thought the tutorial in Gwent was fun and helpful. It doesn’t answer every question about the game, but it’s enough to get you up and running. I prefer it to the longer tutorial they used to have.

If I do pass on Gwent, it won’t be because of the daily quest system. I’ve always thought the daily quest in Gwent was easy. You don’t have to win any matches at all; you just have to win 6 rounds. In any given match, you almost always win at least 1 round, since most games go to three rounds. And I found as a new player that I won plenty of matches because the competition was as clueless as I was. Yes, the games are taking a few seconds longer because there are fewer dry passes now, but I think that’s a major improvement to the game – one of the best new fixes. Now everyone plays at least 3 cards a round, instead of just passing round two (or even round 1) for card advantage.

If I do pass on Gwent, it won’t be because of the daily quest system. I’ve always thought the daily quest in Gwent was easy. You don’t have to win any matches at all; you just have to win 6 rounds. In any given match, you almost always win at least 1 round, since most games go to three rounds. And I found as a new player that I won plenty of matches because the competition was as clueless as I was. Yes, the games are taking a few seconds longer because there are fewer dry passes now…

My point isn’t that it’s ‘hard’, but it needs ‘too much time’. And it’s more than a few seconds, I can’t check because the old version doesn’t exist anymore, but I would say games are almost 3-4 minutes longer now, not because the dry passes but because literally you play more cards and use more card actions with the new systems.

The average game is now 17 minutes or so. Up to 20 minutes if both players are the type who likes to think any possible action well. Add 30 seconds for matchmaking. Now multiply that by 5 if you have to play five games to get the daily reward. Total time needed to play every day: 90 minutes.

Of course, I’m not saying the new systems are bad: I’m saying they should re-adapt their daily rewards to the new system. 5 won rounds instead of 6, for example, it would help.

Hmm, is there data on average game length somewhere? I couldn’t find any in a quick Google search. Once I pry myself away from Thronebreaker, I’ll start timing my own matches to see how they compare.

In any case, even if your numbers are right, remember that daily quests (as opposed to the rewards for winning rounds) are persistent. You can do those over time, as with Hearthstone. Doing just those quests will earn you lots of free stuff.

Gwent has historically had an exceedingly generous FTP model – maybe too generous. In “old” Gwent, after a couple months, I had a ton of cards. I remember wondering how they make money when they give away cards so readily. I never felt any incentive to break down and actually buy kegs. I doubt I’m going to feel differently now, but we’ll see.

Well, I haven’t finished Thronebreaker but I’m at 3/4 done, I could well continue and finish it already.
The price of buying games on release day: more expensive and worse experience. :/

–

@Spock, yes, Gwent is much more generous than other F2P games, but that’s in some cases not the highest standard, and second, it’s more generous… as long as you play it regularly, around 50-80 minutes per day. Which is precisely my complaint. I just would like the ability to play half an hour every day and advance at half the pace, but that isn’t the case, given how the reward system is implemented.

Well, I haven’t finished Thronebreaker but I’m at 3/4 done, I could well continue and finish it already.
The price of buying games on release day: more expensive and worse experience. :/

I don’t own the game yet and haven’t researched it much, but is Thronebreaker more or less a once-and-done sort of game? No deck building to try encounters a different way or anything? Not that I’m suggesting you do any of that, but was wondering for my own purchase potential.

Well, I haven’t finished Thronebreaker but I’m at 3/4 done, I could well continue and finish it already.
The price of buying games on release day: more expensive and worse experience. :/

I don’t own the game yet and haven’t researched it much, but is Thronebreaker more or less a once-and-done sort of game? No deck building to try encounters a different way or anything? Not that I’m suggesting you do any of that, but was wondering for my own purchase potential.

The game is mostly linear, however, there are decisions to take in some events, which it can affect the companions you have (I lost three already lol), it can gain equipment for your leader, or artifacts for your decks (in both cases, a card for your deck), or the event can affect your resources or your morale negatively or positively.
There are enough cards to build the deck based on different concepts, I vary it every two hours or so. And thanks god, the game would be very repetitive otherwise! Sometimes it’s combat after combat, without a lot in the middle.

Although the game will have to be a lot harder to be really re-playable: things like resources or morale that I’ve mentioned? They are almost cosmetic, as the difficulty don’t make them important. Same deal with the deck building itself, 90% of the time I change it just for variety’s sake, not because I really need to do it to overcome a challenge and for that I need new counters.

Oh, of course, the decisions you take in the events supposedly will have some effect on the game ending.

In general, with the big oversights in design and a few bugs I’ve found, I have the feeling the game was released two months early, and in December they will release the ‘real’ 1.0 version.

I agree that Thronebreaker is pretty easy, although I’m only on the second map, so I haven’t seen as much as @TurinTur. We do get resources with which we can build units, but I haven’t built a single one yet, because I keep winning with the cards I’ve accumulated just by playing the game. I do swap new cards in pretty frequently for fun, as most of them have interesting mechanics. So yeah, the devs do need to ramp up the difficulty. Though personally I’m more interested in the story than anything else, so I don’t really mind.

That said, I have had to replay a few puzzles, in a couple cases more than once, and I did lose one pitched battle once.

Overall, it’s very polished, and for me it’s very fun. I get a kick out of experimenting with card interactions, and I love the voice acting and story.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, which we've reviewed and Recommended, hasn't sold as strongly as CD Projekt Red hoped. Here's the admission by joint-CEO A…

“The game appealed to the community, which drove up our expectations regarding sales. Unfortunately, as yet, these expectations have not been fulfilled. Still, we remain optimistic … We expect to continue to sell Thronebreaker for many years to come, even though the initial period may not have lived up to our initial expectations.”

“The game appeared on GOG first for fairly straightforward reasons,” said Kiciński. “GOG is our priority platform and we wanted to release the game there first to gamers who support us there. However, the reach of GOG is incomparably smaller than that of Steam. We know that there’s a large Witcher fan community on Steam and that’s why we also released the game there.”

Gwent itself is also not doing so hot. The plans to revive it with the Homecoming update has been a failure, I would say. After the first weeks, the opinion of the community has solidified in the ‘mixed’ category.